Dianne Houston ('Take the Lead') has signed on to adapt Rebecca Walker's memoir for a film that is now seeking financial backers

The film centers on a 19-year-old American student raised in a Christian and Jewish home who travels to Africa and falls in love with a young Muslim man on an island off the coast of Kenya. Their hastily made plans to marry, however, get blown away by cultural and political forces. Walker, who also hails from a Christian-Jewish home, is the daughter of The Color Purple author Alice Walker.

Bruce Cohen, Jessica Leventhal and Walker are producing. CAA, which reps Madonna, will be taking the project out to financiers in the coming weeks.

Adé marks Madonna’s follow-up to the period romance W.E., which was released by The Weinstein Co. in 2011. The book was published in 2013 by Amazon’s Little A imprint.

Houston, who has an untitled Missy Elliott project in the works, is repped by Kaplan-Stahler Agency.